Leaving Las Vegas
by Red Bess Rackham
Summary: It's a simple case of a cursed book in a haunted bookshop... Except for the part where Sam and Dean are trapped in Las Vegas, there's a super-powered ghost, a strange poem, and a killer on the loose. No, the case isn't simple at all. (Oneshot. Written for SPN Summergen 2018)


_A/n: This was written for SPN Summergen 2018, for the lovely cassiopeia7! My brain returned from war long enough to get this out - just in time to go back to uni, sigh. Thank you so much to my amazing SPN betas, jdl71 & nagi_schwarz, who helped me sort out my plot and gave me ideas on how to finish this beast. \o/_

* * *

 **Leaving Las Vegas**

For Dean, the weirdest part of the case so far wasn't the body with the smashed in head, nor the strange chilly air in the place, but the fact that a dusty, little, family-run bookshop still existed—in Las Vegas.

He couldn't help chuckling when they'd first driven up to the scene. The bookstore was a small, box-like shop with a brick exterior and an old-timey striped awning over the peeling wooden door. It was squished between towering, shining modern stores on either side, with neon signs and massive glass windows, filled with flashy clothes and technological toys. The humble Ashbury Books couldn't have been more out of place if it tried.

"Do people even come here?" Dean mumbled under his breath to Sam as they wandered the store, searching for EMF. "In _Vegas?_ "

"Apparently," said Sam.

He'd spoken with the detective on duty at the station when they first arrived in Vegas, flashing their FBI badges to gain access to the crime scene files. Dean had looked over the photos of the body—head crushed, lots of blood, signs of a struggle. It didn't look immediately supernatural-related, but since it was a local legend that Clarence Ashbury owned a haunted bookshop, the boys had come to investigate Clarence's murder.

Sam and Dean moved deeper into the store, which was packed to the brim with old books of almost every kind Dean could imagine. It smelled like incense and dust, but the place was clean and well taken care of, with plush, cushioned chairs placed at regular intervals between the dark wood shelves.

"Yeah, but, books in Vegas?" Dean pressed. "I get they're all fancy and rare and whatever, but still."

He swung his EMF meter over the shelves and frowned when the meter maxed out with every swipe. The place was loaded with ghostly energy, which explained the chilly, unsettling feeling that had washed over him as soon as he'd set foot inside.

"Nobody comes to Vegas to read," he added. "Except maybe you, but you're weird like that."

"Ha ha," Sam said flatly. "It's famous for being haunted, and it's a protected historical site—the building belonged to a major local philanthropist from a couple hundred years back. So they can't tear it down, but Detective Reynolds said the place is a tourist hot spot _because_ it's so out of place and supposedly haunted."

"Oh, it's definitely haunted, all right." Dean finished his sweep and wandered into the back section of the shop, a separate room with faded signage declaring the shelves were filled with the rarest books on earth. It was less cramped than the front of the shop, with the shelves lining the walls instead of stacked between them. His EMF meter maxed out before he took another step.

"Well, these aren't going to be help in here," Sam murmured, shutting his off and sliding it into his pocket.

"So, we thinking ghost?" Dean asked. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the taped off area where the body had been found. The blood had been cleaned up, but there were dark stains on the old hardwood floor.

"Must be," Sam agreed, distractedly reading the spines of the books closest to him. "Wow, these are amazing…"

Dean was about to tease Sam for his bookworm ways again when he noticed something odd. In the pictures of the crime scene, there'd been books scattered everywhere and several of the shelves had been broken. Yet now, everything had been put back in its place, and the floor was clear of books and debris.

"Hey, do you think Clarence's daughter came in here and cleaned everything up?"

"What do you mean?" Sam tore his attention away from the aged tomes.

Dean waved his hand around the cramped room. "It's all cleaned up."

"Must have."

They took a few minutes to check the last room in the shop, a rectangular space barely larger than a closet that held Clarence's safe and computer, both of which were untouched.

"Not a robbery gone wrong, then," said Sam.

Dean tried his EMF meter, but it was still maxed out. "Still off the charts."

When they came out of the Rare Books section, Dean made straight for the door, ready to get the hell out of the shop—the level of ghostly energy soaking the place was really making his skin itch—but Sam stopped him.

"Um, was that there before?"

Dean glanced over his shoulder and stopped too. In the middle of the floor was a burgundy-colored book, half-open with its pages smooshed against the floor.

"Nope."

They crouched down on either side of it, careful not to touch it in case it was a cursed object. Dean craned his head sideways so he could read the faded title on the ragged front cover, but it wasn't English.

Sam _hmm_ ed thoughtfully. "Maybe this had something to do with Clarence's death."

"How so?" He couldn't see how a book had been the cause of death, but after all he'd seen, he couldn't exactly discount the possibility either.

"Well, I think...I think it's Icelandic?" Sam said, squinting at the book.

"Ice _landic_?" Dean stared. "How the hell do you even—"

"There was an exchange student in my second year at Stanford and I tried to take some continuing ed language courses— _shut up_." Sam's cheeks reddened as Dean laughed. "I just wanted to ask her out, but I'm pretty sure I asked her to boil my sausage in the library instead—Dean, seriously, it's not that funny!"

Dean had to lean against one of the shelves for support, he was laughing so hard. The image was fantastic, and even though Sam kept telling him to _shut up, stop, seriously,_ he was laughing too.

"Okay," Sam said, when he got his breath back and Dean was wiping his eyes. "Fine, it's funny."

"Ah, I'm so glad you told me that." Dean cleared his throat and crouched back down to look at the book again, fighting off another wave of laughter as _boil my sausage in the library_ kept replaying in his head. "So, what does it say?"

"I think it says…'Lonely Poems?' Or...something-something poems, anyway." Sam's forehead creased. "I'm not sure. But being that this appeared out of nowhere...it might be a clue, if not the cause of death."

"That?"

"Well, nothing else is out of place." Sam stood and waved his hand around. "And if it's cursed—"

"It's a book of poetry, Sam. What is it gonna do, sonnet us to death?"

"We've seen weirder."

Dean opened his mouth to retort, but shrugged. "Yeah, fair enough." He circled the book, scowling down at it. "So, do you think this up and beaned ol' Clarence?"

"Got any better ideas?"

Dean shook his head. After a full day of searching the bookstore, and based on the case files they'd read at the police station, it was as good a guess as any. Plus, there was the fact that both of them were uneasy enough that they hadn't reached out to touch the book.

"What do you think, then?" he asked, scratching his neck. "Salt and burn?"

"Couldn't hurt," said Sam.

Dean dug out a pack of matches from his jacket pocket as Sam headed for the door to get some salt from the car. "Wow—I never thought I'd see the day."

"What?" Sam stopped, hand on the doorframe.

"Sam Winchester, burnin' a _book_." He whistled loudly.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

Dean chuckled. He grabbed a broom from the janitor nook beside Clarence's "office" and swept the cursed book onto the cracked cement pad outside the back door. Sam returned and tossed a few handfuls of salt onto the old poetry book, and Dean struck a match and lobbed it on top. They watched the pages catch, and Sam's lips pressed into a tight line. Dean patted his brother's shoulder only half-jokingly.

Finally, the book burned down to a pile of white ashes.

They'd barely made it back to the motel when Bobby called them with a new job to do.

Dean groaned as he pocketed his phone. "Man, we didn't even get to have any fun." He grabbed his discarded Fed suit and stuffed it into his bag. He'd be glad to get away from the garish pink carpet in this place, but the beds were the best kind of squishy.

"We really should stick around a few more days and make sure the thing with Clarence is all sewn up," said Sam, tucking his folded shirt into his duffel.

"Probably." Dean popped into the bathroom and swept the little row of free soaps and shampoos into his bag. "But Bobby needs us on this one. Besides, if anything's still hinky with Clarence's case, we can always come _back_." He waggled his eyebrows at Sam and grinned.

"You just want to go to the casinos." Sam closed up his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

"Damn right. Why come to Vegas if you're _not_ going to hit up the casinos?" Dean did a quick circuit of the room, making sure they'd left nothing behind, though he was sure he was forgetting something important. He couldn't help one last, longing look at the bed, with its triangle-patterned comforter and nice, white sheets.

"Um, the shows? Cirque du Soleil, Penn & Teller, Blue Man Group, Wayne Newton…" Sam closed the door behind them and headed for the Impala. They threw their bags in the trunk. "Wait, unless you're mad you didn't get to see _Celine?_ " he teased.

"Hey, she's an icon and a legend, and we'd be damn lucky to see her in person," Dean said seriously. When Sam barked out a laugh, Dean cranked the radio and pulled out onto the main road. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut that wouldn't go away, but chalked it up to lingering effects of hanging out in the haunted bookshop all day.

They were still bantering about Vegas and Clarence and everything in between by the time they neared the city limits. A massive white and red sign on the horizon, lined with blinking lights, announced _You are now leaving Las Vegas!_ in obnoxiously large font.

"Goodbye, sweet Vegas," said Dean. "Alas, I barely knew you."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Geez, Dean, you'd think were never going to—"

* * *

Dean opened his eyes. The white ceiling fan of the Hera Motel swung lazily overhead. He blinked and shifted, confused.

 _What was I just dreaming about?_ He'd been driving, hadn't he? He closed his eyes, trying to remember, to bring back the images, but they were blurry and vague. He looked blearily at Sam who was also waking up, groaning and stretching.

"Time to go already?" Dean said, stifling a yawn. He sat up, wincing at himself—he'd slept in his clothes again.

"Yeah…" Sam stood groggily. He opened the curtains, letting mid-morning daylight splash inside. They'd slept in late for their usual standards. He started packing up his duffel bag. "Sorry, you're not gonna get to check out the casinos after all."

Dean scrunched his forehead—somehow it felt like they'd had this conversation before. But no, they'd come back here after the bookstore, and then Bobby had called, and they'd decided to leave Vegas… He couldn't remember why they hadn't left the night before, but figured it didn't matter. They were leaving now.

"Well," said Dean, gathering his clothes from the floor and stuffing them in his duffel. "There's no point in coming to Vegas if you're not gonna gamble. Everybody knows that."

He was forgetting something—no, he _had_ forgotten something before? Somewhere? But he had all of his things, plus the free toiletries from the bathroom.

Sam chuckled. "Of course you would say that." He folded his clothes neatly one by one and placed them into his duffel.

Dean shook off the intense sense of déjà vu attacking his senses and gathered his stuff together. Less than ten minutes later, they were in the Impala and blaring down the main road out of town. Dean's shoulders were tight with tension and he couldn't place why—maybe he was more upset about leaving Vegas without doing anything fun than he realized.

When Sam teased Dean for being disappointed about not getting to see Celine Dion, Dean had to say something. The anxious feeling roiling in his gut was only getting worse the closer to the edge of the city they got.

"Sam…I have a really, really weird feeling, like we've had this conversation before." Dean shook his head. "I swear, it's like I dreamed it last night and it's happening now. That's weird, right?"

Sam got a funny look on his face. "So it's not just me."

"What?"

"When I woke up, I could've sworn that we'd decided to leave last night. I don't remember why we didn't."

Dean leaned back in his seat, unsure what to think. Had something happened? Some sort of memory voodoo that neither of them could remember? From what? He gave his head a shake. That could explain the strange anxiety, but...

"Either the universe pulled one hell of a coincidence on us, or something happened," he said.

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Let's just get to Bobby's and we'll figure it out."

"Agreed." Dean pressed on the gas as the ugly red and white city limits sign came into view. Maybe he could outrun the dread pooling in his chest.

 _You are now leaving Las Vegas!_

"For a second there, I was worried I was—"

* * *

When Dean opened his eyes and saw the bland ceiling fan above, he tried not to panic, but the sense that this had happened before was so strong, it was hard not to. He didn't move until he heard Sam shift beside him.

"Sam…?"

There was a long pause and then his brother answered, "Yeah?"

"Did you just dream that we were driving out of Vegas and something was really wrong?" Dean curled his fingers into a fistful of comfy quilt, dreading Sam's answer either way. It was bad if it was happening to just him—it was worse if it was happening to both of them.

"Yeah."

"Shit."

" _Yeah_."

* * *

They packed their bags in seconds and were on the road only minutes after that. Dean held the wheel with white knuckles and Sam talked out a dozen possibilities, but none of them made much sense. If this weirdness was related to something in the bookstore, then what was it? They'd been careful not to touch anything, knowing the place was haunted. Who knew if Clarence knowingly, or unknowingly, had cursed books in his collection? Or made an enemy of a witch?

Had _they_ been hexed? By who, or why? Dean had checked their room over out of habit when they arrived at the motel, and again before they left the night before—no hex bags, no sign of any dark magic.

Or _was_ it the night before that he'd checked?

"Do you think it's Gabriel?" Dean cut in to Sam's mumbled theorizing. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he held onto the wheel tighter. Dark feelings of foreboding pulsed through him. "Is he _Groundhog Day_ ing us—you—again, and now me, for some reason?"

"I don't know," Sam answered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He looked out to the horizon, colored with shades of a setting sun. "But I swear it was morning when we first woke up, and now it's…"

"Later," Dean finished. "So does that mean the day is resetting, or just…" He glanced at Sam.

"Or is it just _us_?" Sam wondered. He clutched his hands together, as if to stop them from shaking.

The city limits sign came into view.

"Do you think he—it, whatever, is doing this, too?" Dean gestured vaguely between them. "I feel like I can barely _breathe_ , man."

Sam nodded as they passed _You are now leaving Las Vegas!_ "If it's—"

* * *

"SON OF A BITCH." Dean flung his pillow across the room. "Why the hell can't we _leave?"_

Sam jumped out of bed and threw open the curtains. Outside, the sun had set, though it was hard to tell amongst all the light and noise spilling out from every corner of Vegas that he could see.

"At least we know it's us," said Sam reasonably. "And we know we can't get past the edge of the city without being zapped back here for some reason."

Dean paced. He was angry and, okay, kinda scared. Waking up in the motel over and over made him feel trapped and vulnerable, two things he'd never been good at handling. Not to mention the borderline panic attack he was having when they tried to drive out of here. He forced himself to take a deep breath and try to analyze their situation.

"The book," Sam said suddenly, hopping around his bed. "This started after we burned the book in the shop."

Dean threw his hands up. "Perfect, Sam! Except how are we supposed to _un_ burn it?"

"I don't know, but I think we should go back to the bookshop."

* * *

The book was there in the middle of the floor.

"Okay," said Dean. " _What._ "

First, they tried shelving it. Sam was against touching the thing initially, and frankly so was Dean, but he figured if they were already cursed, what was a little more curse-age? Sam looked in Clarence's catalogue and they shelved the book in its proper place, then they left.

Dean swore loud and long when they woke up in the motel a fourth time.

They tried shredding the book, they tried burying it, they tried taking it with them. Each time, they made it to the city limits with pounding hearts, and then they woke up in their motel beds, with a couple hours of time lost.

After a fruitless night of resetting themselves back to the motel a dozen times, Bobby called around eight in the morning. "Where the hell are you boys? I've been waiting for you two to show."

Dean sighed, pressing the heel of his hand to his eyes. "I don't know how to tell you this, but we can't leave Las Vegas."

"What the hell kind of excuse is that?" Bobby snapped, clearly in a particularly surly mood from worrying about them all night. Dean put him on speaker phone so Sam could hear him, too. "Get your assess away from the slots or strip joint or whatever the hell you're nose-deep in, and _get_ —"

"Bobby, no, hold up, I mean we _physically_ cannot leave!" Dean explained hastily. "Something on this job put the whammy on us, and every time we try to get out of the city, we end up in our motel. Reset, like a twisted version of Groundhog Day."

"We've been at it for almost two days, Bobby," Sam put in somberly.

Bobby fell quiet for a moment. "Well, shit."

"Yeah," Dean grunted.

They spent half an hour going over possibilities with Bobby. He promised to hand over the urgent case he had on his hands to Garth, who was not currently trapped.

"And I'll look through my books and see if I can find anything helpful," he added. "Be careful, be safe. Call me if you need me."

"We will." Dean hung up and looked at Sam. "Any more grand ideas?"

* * *

Dean huffed and grumbled when they walked into the bookstore yet again.

"Okay," he shouted. "We don't get the joke and we're damn tired of this game, so just show us whatever the hell you need to show us so we can freakin' leave! Give us a sign, damn it!"

"Dean," Sam chided softly.

"What?" He spun and glared at Sam. "I'm done playing nice with the ghost or whatever that's doing this. I'm _done_ being here, at all. This is the worst Vegas trip ever— _ow_ , what the _hell!_ " He doubled over when something smacked him square in the back of the head, flooding his vision with white fuzz.

There was a loud _thud_ and Dean held his head, bending over and swearing under his breath. When he straightened, Sam was picking the stupid, cursed red poetry book up off the floor and visibly trying not to laugh.

"Don't," Dean warned, snatching the book away from Sam.

"You asked for a sign," Sam replied and chuckled.

Dean slammed the book on the counter. "This is not a sign. This is the _problem_ and we have no damn solution. We—"

The book fluttered open and the pages zipped by of their own accord. Sam and Dean jumped back. Dean had his gun out and aimed at the book before it had finished flipping. The pages gently settled. The boys glanced around the bookshop, but nothing was amiss—it was quiet, empty, exactly as it had been, every time they'd come.

Sam leaned towards the book and Dean readied his gun.

"Be careful," he murmured, and Sam nodded.

"Is this the page it was open on when it was the ground?" he asked.

"I don't know, man," Dean grumbled. "I was busy trying to kill a cursed book, I didn't take the time to read it." He waited a beat as Sam edged closer and skimmed the page. "What does it say?"

"It's a poem…"

"No shit, Sherlock, it's a poetry book," Dean retorted. He was so very, _very_ done with this creepy little shop and its super-haunted little book.

Sam flipped him the bird. "I _meant_ —it's got repeating lines. But I think it's...Dean, we need to translate this for real, but I think it's a poem about...murder."

Dean lowered his gun.

Sam looked up, forehead wrinkling with worry. "I don't think the book is cursed, and I don't think Clarence's death was supernatural."

* * *

Translating the poem in full took some doing. Sam only knew a little Icelandic, Dean knew none, Bobby didn't have any helpful Icelandic books, and Google Translate was weird. Between all of the above plus a call into another hunter who had a friend who had an Icelandic cousin, by late evening, they had managed to get the poem translated and had a plausible working theory of what exactly the hell was going on.

Dean leaned back into the pile of pillows he'd amassed throughout the day, trying not to let his tired eyes close as the sun set somewhere outside their motel window. He was surrounded by a spread of papers and takeout wrappers and ready for a very long nap. Instead, he sipped from the coffee cup in his hand, swallowing it down despite it being dead cold and overly sweet. He needed the caffeine boost.

"Okay, read the last bit again?" he said, pushing his other hand through his hair.

Sam took a deep breath and read,

" _Fiend, get thee gone! no more repeat  
Those sounds which do mine ears offend.  
It is apocryphal, you cheat,  
Your double murder in Mile End."_

"Yep. Double murder." Dean gave up on his day-old coffee dregs after a couple more gulps and chucked the cup into the bin by the bed. "Somebody or some _thing_ murdered Clarence and another person, and a ghost—possibly Clarence's—is keeping us bound to Las Vegas until we find the killer."

"I mean, it's the best idea we've got," said Sam. He looked as tired as Dean felt.

Dean climbed off the bed to stretch out his stiff legs and back. "Okay, so then how the hell do we do that, especially when we have no idea who the second victim is?"

Sam closed his laptop with a long sigh. "I think we have to talk to the ghost in the shop."

Dean stared. "Really? Feral, possibly murderous, book-wielding ghost in the haunted bookshop? That's what we're going with?"

"Possible victim, possible witness, and you _asked_ for it," Sam corrected, standing to grab his coat. He smirked and pushed past Dean. "Besides, what ghost has ever tried to help us solve a murder that _they_ committed?"

Dean refused to admit his brother had a point. He followed him out to the car scowling. "If I get hit with another book or we bounce back to the motel again, I'm gonna lose it."

* * *

The ghost, as it turned out, was Mabel—Clarence's wife of just one month, two weeks, four days, nine hours, and six minutes, according to her ghost. His wife, until she was murdered.

It took a few tries to summon her, but when she finally came fully into view, Dean's first thought was that she was kinda hot, followed immediately by the thought that he should not be thinking a murdered ghost-lady was attractive in any way. But she had big, dark eyes, a sweet smile, and dark hair pinned up in some 40's or 50's do that really suited her. Put together, she looked like something straight out of _Mad Men._

"Forgive me," she said, in a soft, dreamy sort of voice. "It's hard to stay tethered here without Clarence."

"What happened?" Sam asked quietly.

"Why'd you throw a book at my head?" Dean demanded, oh-so-tactfully. But whatever—he didn't have the patience to beat around the bush at this point. He ignored the exasperated look Sam threw his way.

"I'm sorry." Mabel winced. "But you weren't understanding."

"You could have spelled it out for us," Dean grumbled.

"I tried," she insisted. "The book was open to the _Ballade of a Special Edition_ —a poem about a double murder. All you had to do was read it."

"It was written in Icelandic," Sam told her, sounding amused.

"Was it?" Mabel's brow creased. "Oh dear. Well, no wonder it took you two hunters so long."

"Wait, you knew we were hunters?" Dean narrowed his eyes at her.

Mabel nodded. "We've had many through here over the years. Clarence was never part of the Life himself, but he helped where he could. He knew all about ghosts once I showed up, anyway, and most of the books he sells are novelty and rare and helpful for hunters. It was just a hop, skip, and a jump from there, especially once he married Loraine when he was forty-three—her brother was a hunter."

Dean couldn't help chuckling at her airy tone, despite the misgivings he still had about talking to a ghost in the first place.

"So what were you trying to tell us?" Sam prompted, getting Mabel back to what they needed from her.

"I knew who murdered Clarence," she said somberly. "Because he murdered me, too."

* * *

"Joseph Ripton had been searching for _Hechizos Mágicos: Más Letales y Raros_ — _Magical Spells: Most Deadly & Rare_—for years before he came to our shop," Mabel explained. Her ghostly eyes grew glassy with memories as she talked. "He was rough-looking—hard, with wild eyes. He swore the book had been sent to me by my late father, but I had no record of it—I couldn't find it in the shop, so I told him either it hadn't arrived or he'd made a mistake."

She shivered and swirled around the room. "He kept coming back and I kept telling him we didn't have it. Clarence, too. He tried to ban Ripton from coming back at all when Ripton got especially aggressive, and we called the police on him twice, but he didn't stop. We even got a restraining order."

Dean swallowed. He hated hearing stories like this—he was tempted to march out of the bookshop right then and pummel Ripton to bits. What gave him the right to terrorize a newlywed couple over a damn book? Over _anything?_

"One night, when Clarence took the week's earnings to the bank, Ripton came back." Mabel wrapped her arms around her middle. "He was screaming about the book, that he needed it, and he wasn't going to let me hide it from him."

She sighed, and her tone changed from a sad one to a sort of resigned, matter-of-fact one. "Well, then he killed me. He ransacked the shop, our house, but he never found what he was looking for so he moved on. Believed, finally, that the book really never had come."

"If you knew who killed you, why didn't you do anything about it before now?" Dean asked, still unsure what to do with Mabel's story. He side-eyed Sam, trying to determine if he was buying what Mabel was selling. Sam had his arms crossed as he listened intently to every word Mabel was saying. "Especially if he was—is, clearly—still a threat?"

Mabel's eyes welled up with tears and she covered her face with her hands. "I _tried_ ," she sobbed. "We both tried." She cried for a few moments, and Dean and Sam quietly waited her out.

She sucked in a few breaths to steady herself. "Clarence knew it was Joseph—he told the police. But they never found him. Clarence wanted to hunt him down himself, but I begged him not to. I couldn't bear if he was...if he was killed…"

Dean clenched his jaw. _He was murdered anyways._

Mabel wiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks. "Ripton never surfaced. I tried to find him, but it's so hard to go very far like this—I just don't have enough power to leave the city."

"So your case went cold," said Sam softly.

"Yes. But I've always known Ripton was out there somewhere—I could feel this horrible, lingering... _darkness_ that never really went away." Mabel reached out, touching the books around her as if needing to anchor herself before she spoke again. "It was just a feeling, though, until this week. Then it was _so strong_."

"He was back in Vegas," supplied Dean.

"I looked for him. But I spent too much energy and...I...and when I came back…" Mabel's voice wobbled with emotion and tears trickled down her cheeks again. "I should have been here to protect Clarence," she finished in a broken whisper.

Sam cleared his throat after giving Mabel a moment to cry again. "Why did Ripton come back, then, after all these years?"

"The book he was looking for _did_ come to us," said Mabel, sniffling. Dean raised his eyebrows in surprise. "My father _did_ send it. It just so happens, that he sent it to Clarence instead, with a dire warning to destroy it. I never got the full story of why—neither did Clarence. But I guess my father had some secrets and most of them died with him."

"So…Clarence had the book the whole time?" said Dean, trying to piece her story together. "But you didn't know that, and he never told you? And Ripton murdered _you_ over it?"

Mabel nodded and dropped her arms to her sides in a _well, things happen_ sort of way.

"That's a dick move," Dean mumbled.

"But Clarence never destroyed it, either?" Sam prompted.

"No," said Mabel. "He could never bring himself to destroy a book. Besides, it was a fake—it wasn't a real spellbook—it wasn't even the original one that Ripton was hunting so obsessively."

"What?" Dean looked to Sam and back to Mabel. All of this shit for a _fake_ spellbook?

"Truly!" Mabel said excitedly, like it was a funny piece of gossip instead of her tragic life story. "Clarence figured it out. He hid it, deciding it must be dangerous anyways if Ripton wanted it so badly and my father wanted it destroyed. He never told me about it, though, feeling it was better I not know he had it at all. After Ripton killed me, Clarence simply left the book hidden, afraid that Ripton would still come back for it."

"But Ripton figured if it was sent to you and never came, then it was lost in transit?" Dean tried, crossing his arms over his chest. "So Ripton's in the wind, and you're dead, the book is hidden, and then what? Clarence digs up the book and Ripton comes back? Why now?"

"Mm, more or less." Mabel shrugged. "Clarence decided enough time had passed—he was eighty-nine, after all, and thought that Ripton was either dead or elderly, so the danger had passed. He tried to get rid of the book by selling it online. Since it wasn't full of real spells, he figured there was no harm in it."

Sam frowned. "Word got back to Ripton."

"Who, as it turns out, is not elderly or dead after all," Mabel said airly. "Whatever he's been dabbling in has kept him young. Younger than my sweet Clarence, anyway."

Dean scrubbed his hand over his face. On the one hand, he was _so_ ready to grind this Ripton dude into dust. Not only was he a double-murderer, but he was messing with supernatural forces he likely did not understand. On the other, this was all assuming Mabel was telling the honest truth, and while his gut told him she was, his head told him to be careful—there was no real reason why she couldn't be lying.

"Sam," he murmured. "Sidebar?"

"Um, okay. Can you give us a second, Mabel?"

She bobbed her head.

Dean crossed the room to Clarence's closet-sized office and squeezed himself in beside the black desk.

"Are you buying this?" he asked in an undertone as soon as Sam had squeezed in next to him.

"Are you not?"

"I don't know," Dean answered honestly. "I mean, this Ripton jackass sounds like somebody we should definitely be taking out, especially if he's playing with magic. But we _gank_ ghosts—we don't run around solving double homicides for them."

"Would it be so bad if we did?" said Sam.

"Dude, what if _she's_ the one who brained Clarence and we're just spinning our wheels here?" Dean suggested, trying to wrap his mind around all the possibilities. "Maybe she wants us eternally trapped in Vegas?"

Which, if he wasn't constantly being bounced back to a motel with screaming pink carpet, might not have been the worst thing in the world, he had to admit.

"I don't think she's lying. There'd be no reason to," Sam reasoned. "Why keep us here if she wants us dead? Why tell us all this stuff about Ripton if it's not true?"

Dean huffed. "She's bored?"

"I don't think so." Sam pressed his lips into a thin thin and his forehead crinkled with thought. "We could maybe hand this case back to the cops, but…"

"But Mabel's the one using all her mojo to keep us here to solve her case," Dean finished. "If we just tell the cops what they already know about Ripton, that doesn't help her or stop him."

After a moment, Sam's brow cleared. "Hold on—she said Ripton was back in the city, and she could feel him."

Dean lifted his chin, pretty sure he could see where his brother was going with this. "She knows where he is. Think she can reach that far?"

Sam shrugged. "Let's ask."

They clambered out of the office and into the Rare Books room, where Mabel was humming softly to herself and rearranging some leather-bound books.

"Mabel, do you know where Ripton is right now?" said Sam urgently.

"Oh, yes," Mabel replied, setting the books down.

Sam looked to Dean, his face lighting with a particular expression that said he'd just put the whole puzzle together and knew what to do next.

"Can you reach him?" asked Sam. "If we go after him, can you help us?"

" _Yes_." Mabel's eyes glittered. "He thinks he's won now, you see. He's checked into a motel not far from here, to relax and regroup before he goes on his way again. He'll never expect hunters and a ghost to come through his door."

"Hold up," said Dean. "What motel?"

"The Hera Motel," she answered. "I kept putting you back _there_ for a reason, you know."

Dean grumbled, "Son of a _bitch_."

* * *

The fight was brutal, if short.

Dean and Sam returned to the motel, guns in hand, after placing a quick call to tell Detective Reynolds that they'd found Clarence and Mabel Ashbury's murderer. Joseph Ripton had been sipping drinks, smugly holed up in a room just down the hall from Sam and Dean's, holding the stolen spellbook and thinking he'd gotten away with another murder.

When the boys barged through the door, Ripton flew into action. Whatever magic he'd messed with had slowed his aging, as Mabel had said; he was barely in his fifties—and he packed a wallop. He threw the boys and threw chairs and the TV and the damn _mini-fridge_ , all without touching them, though the effort was clearly immense. He was no witch or creature or naturally powerful beasty—just a man, with an unhealthy obsession or three. He was sapped and shaky within minutes, if still hella angry and violent.

Mabel flickered into view and Ripton screamed.

"No! You're _dead!"_ he shouted.

"So are you," Mabel sneered.

She charged Ripton with a mighty roar and crashed into him, through him, out of him, exploding in a ball of light that had Ripton howling and collapsing. A blast of black smoke and purple sparks and white light pulsed out from the pair of them, blasting the motel windows out and spraying the room with shards of glass.

Dean covered his head and grit his teeth against noise and force erupting through the room. When the wind disappeared, he cracked open his eyes to see Ripton twitching and bleeding on the floor, and Sam slowly, carefully getting to his knees, arm clutching his ribcage.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. "I think I broke a rib on the fridge."

Dean snorted and then grimaced as pain lanced through his shoulder blades. "Yeah. Me and the ceiling fan had a disagreement." He glared at Ripton, who was sputtering nonsense punctuated with Mabel and Clarence's names.

Detective Reynolds and his men arrived around then, guns drawn. They all stared, open-mouthed at the scene.

"Agent Page?" said Reynolds, carefully stepping around broken glass and furniture debris. "Agent Young? Are you all right? What the hell happened?"

He helped Dean to his feet.

Dean shook his head. Reynolds wouldn't believe the truth and no easy lie was jumping to his lips, so he said, "I really couldn't tell you, Detective."

Reynolds blinked in confusion as several policemen surrounded Ripton, who'd fallen unconscious. He directed Dean and Sam to be seen by the paramedics in the hallway. Once they were cleaned and patched up, they went back to the bookstore, one last time.

Mabel was waiting in the Rare Books section. She somehow looked brighter, fuller, and less ghostly when they arrived, almost as if someone had turned up the Technicolor, but just on her.

"You did it," she breathed when they limped through the door.

" _You_ did it," Dean corrected.

"How, by the way?" said Sam, eyeing Mabel up and down.

Mabel smiled. "Clarence helped."

"He's here?" Dean glanced around for a second ghost, but there was no one aside from the three of them.

"I can't…" Mabel tilted her head. "I don't how to explain. He found me—I was... somewhere, racing through nothing towards you and Ripton, and then he was just... _there_. Together, we…" She splayed her hands out before her and then pressed them together.

"You...sandwiched?" tried Dean, and Sam rolled his eyes. "What?"

"Something like that," Mabel said with a soft giggle. She sobered quickly and glanced between them. "Ripton? Did we get him?"

"He's gone," Dean confirmed, rubbing his aching knee. "Or close enough, anyway. If he doesn't die, he's gonna be locked up for a long-ass time."

"We contacted a hunter buddy of ours who's going to keep on eye on things, in case Ripton's magic is strong enough to get him out of jail," Sam assured her.

Mabel was brimming with relief. Her smile was so wide, it probably hurt her cheeks. "He won't—whatever we did, it killed his magic. I can feel it—the presence, the darkness is gone. For the first time since I died...it's _gone_."

Dean glanced at Sam, who gave him an equal _no idea_ look in return.

"Mabel, if you don't mind us asking, but why haven't you, I mean...how are you so…stable?" Sam wondered.

"Yeah, ghosts aren't built to last," said Dean, carefully leaning against a bookshelf to take his weight off his bruised knee. "No matter how badly they want to be okay—they all go wild, lose themselves. Sometimes they become killers when they can't let go of their unfinished business."

"I live in the books," Mabel said simply. She ran her ghostly hands across the spines, her fingers dipping through them and into their pages. "I grew up in this bookstore. I spent my entire life here, loving every little piece of this place. I met Clarence here. It seems fitting that I would spend my death here too, don't you think?"

Dean almost smiled, but Mabel still hadn't really answered the question.

She twirled to face them. "I suppose somewhere along the way, my spirit fused with this place, these books—all this knowledge. As long as people keep visiting and reading, I keep living." Mabel shrugged. "I think the books give me power, too—that's how I was able to stop you from leaving the city."

"That was some serious power," Sam said.

Mabel blushed like he'd bestowed her a clever compliment.

"But then…" Dean stopped, not wanting to finish his thought. He glanced at Sam who suddenly looked like he might throw up, having had the same realization at the same moment he did. If Mabel was attached to the books and gained power from them and the shop...

"We can't burn down a bookstore, Dean," Sam whispered. "We _can't_ —and a _historical site_ —" He stopped, shaking his head.

 _But if we don't_ … Would Mabel eventually turn feral without the grounding presence of Clarence? Or was the presence of the books enough? Could she continue to be okay, now that justice had been served and Ripton was gone?

"Valerie would take good care of me," Mabel said, breaking Dean from his thoughts. "I've known her since she was a little girl. She's helped Clarence for years."

"Clarence's daughter?" asked Sam, and Mabel nodded serenely. He looked to Dean again, upset and frozen with indecision.

Dean was pretty sure he knew what they should do—what Dad would do. He didn't share the same kind of deep love for books or history that Sam had, and he didn't believe that Mabel wouldn't eventually go dark side—all ghosts did in the end. But if Valerie knew what she was getting into in taking over the haunted bookshop, and if Mabel had held on _this_ long, especially with her "unfinished business" of Ripton still on the loose…

"Maybe...maybe we don't need to burn the shop," he told his brother. Sam exhaled and looked like he might fall down with relief. Dean smiled and held back a joke about his book-nerd brother.

"You don't," Mabel agreed softly. "Because I'm going to leave. We...Clarence and I, both."

"But, Mabel, you just told us that you're living in these books— _because_ of them—and that Valerie will take care of you," said Sam.

"I said she _would_." Mabel circled the room slowly, running her hands along the books again. "But without Clarence living here...I don't think I can stay. I don't need to. And if part of me lives in the books, then part of me will _always_ live in these books. Do you understand?"

"Not exactly," said Dean, glancing at Sam, who looked like he was trying to sort it out himself.

Mabel smiled, a sweet, radiant sort of smile. It was no wonder Clarence had fallen for her, in Dean's opinion.

"That's all right," she said. "You don't have to. Just please, be sure to tell Valerie we said goodbye."

She blew them a kiss and though Sam called for her to wait, Mabel opened her arms and leaned back. A bright light came out from her middle and she dissolved into a sparkling cascade of ashes. Instantly, the atmosphere of the bookstore felt emptier and a little darker—Mabel's presence was entirely gone.

Dean didn't understand the dull sadness that moved through him as he watched the ashes disintegrate into nothing.

* * *

Dean pushed open the door of their motel room and hobbled inside. He avoided using his right hand, which was purpled and smarting from where it'd connected with Ripton's face half a dozen times during their battle.

"So he murdered her for a _book_ ," Dean growled.

"It was a one-of-a-kind spellbook," said Sam. The swelling on his left eye and split lip was going down, Dean was glad to see that. "Or, he thought so, anyways. Bobby said the real one was destroyed a hundred years ago, but people still go nuts for the fakes, thinking they're the real deal."

"Still." Dean shook his head. It never ceased to amaze him how terrible humans could be, and he hunted _literal monsters_ for a living. "It wasn't even real. The dude wasted his entire life, dabbling in supernatural and occult magic crap, all to get his hands on this ultimate death-cheating book. He terrorized people and committed murder, twice, for a stupid, fake book."

"But we got him," Sam said with a satisfied sigh. "And now Mabel and Clarence are at peace. Case closed." He leaned down to grab his duffel bag with a hiss and a long groan.

"Ribs?" asked Dean, gingerly picking up his own. His shoulder was still tender from where he'd collided with the ceiling fan.

Sam nodded with his eyes shut, trying to regulate his breathing.

This time when they packed their things into the trunk, Dean didn't have a trickle of dread and foreboding slipping down his spine. As they drove down the main road away from the motel, his shoulders didn't tighten with tension. He kept breathing, and no wave of anxiety threatened to pull him under as he drove.

Nevertheless, when the giant city limits sign came into view, red and white and blinking, he and Sam exchanged nervous looks.

"Let's see if Mabel and her ghost superpowers really let us go," Dean mumbled.

Sam swallowed and braced his hand on the dashboard.

Dean punched the gas pedal.

 _You are now leaving Las Vegas!_

The Impala sailed past the sign. Dean held his breath for another few seconds just to be safe. Sam let go of the dash and exhaled in a rush. The flashy, massive city grew steadily smaller in the rearview mirror, and neither spoke for a minute, as if they were both still worried they'd suddenly blink themselves back to the Hera Motel.

"Dean," Sam said, after a healthy couple of miles. "Let's maybe stay away from Vegas for a while. Like, a long while."

The back of Dean's head was still sore from the stupid poetry book Mabel had thrown at him.

"Agreed, Sammy. A-freakin'-greed."

 **-END-**

* * *

 _A/n: The book was called "Bókin um glatað og einmana ljóð" or, "The Book of Lost & Lonely Poetry", which I made up and used Google for translation, so please correct me if I am wrong! The poem, however, is real: it is called "Ballade of a Special Edition", by Amy Levy (a famous British poet and novelist from the 1800's). Lastly, I definitely played fast and loose with some magic and ghost rules, here, but I figure canon also does that when it suits them, so it's allowed. ;)  
_


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